Volatile
by GleeGeneration23
Summary: In which John Walton reflects on his relationship over the years with Ben-the most volatile of the Walton Boys and the one that reminds John the most of himself. Spans the series of the Waltons, the Movies and what happened before that. Please Read and Review.


**Hi, so here is another Walton's story-I was watching old episodes the past couple of days and in particular episodes including Ben and then this little piece was born-throughout all nine seasons it seems to me that the one child John has the most conflict with is Ben so then this was born-John's perspective on Ben both pre and post the season.**

 **This takes into account the Walton Movies. I haven't watched all of them but I understand that Virginia died of an undisclosed death and that Ben and Cindy were looking to adopt. I chose to include Charlie in this but I apologise for any inaccuracies.**

 **If you have any specific scene, or character analysis or episode analysis or prompt send it in and I will add it my list...**

 **Disclaimer-I own nothing**

 **Please Read and Review. **

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Volatile

In which John Walton reflects on his relationship over the years with Ben-the most volatile of the Walton Boys and the one that reminds John the most of himself.

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Livy tells him she's pregnant with his fourth child one day when he gets back in from work. His Ma and Pa have given them the evening alone which really should be the first clue, John Boy and Jason run off to play in the dirt outside the porch their little feet getting coated in the mud and despite Oliva's rather valiant attempt to stop her Mary-Ellen eventually gets her way and runs off to play with them.

That's when Livy turns her head to him and carefully wonders whether or not he wants the newest edition to be a boy or a girl. It's really the best news he could have gotten all day and makes not only the oppressive heat but the coil wrapped tightly against his chest when he thinks of his brother so soon after the war easier for the briefest of seconds.

On a cold day in November 1920 his mother hands him a squirming bundle of baby boy. He's small but his little clenched fists fly out his eyes an outraged shade of blue as if he is furious that he has been disturbed. He has a tuft of red hair, bright and furious like the rest of him.

Something tells him that this one is going to be trouble. That this son is going to give him his money's worth, not like gentle John Boy or curious Jason or his baby girl Mary-Ellen

They name the child Benjamin Henry.

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When Ben is three he gets the idea to go and play on the top of the log pile. He climbs out of bed and down the stairs from his nap time and is up the logs with a look of such concentration it would have seemed cute. He scraps his knee but he seems unconcerned playing with the sawdust on top of the pile chatting animatedly to himself.

It takes John all of ten minutes to Livy screaming at him to John finding him but he personally feels like it's been ten years. Ben isn't quite sure what he's done wrong but he takes the instruction that he isn't supposed to leave the house without an adult's permission really well.

John knows somewhere, some place his big brother is laughing his ass off.

Ben grows and grows, the uncontrollable wild streak getting tamer and tamer and even though Livy hopes that he's gonna be a preacher John really thinks that that's unrealistic. When he wins the spelling contest John thinks that maybe it's the corner being turned. And then Ben spends hours playing with that star thing that nearly put his Pa out to pasture staying up way past his bedtime to stare at the thing and John thinks maybe the worst is coming.

He's proven right naturally. Ben really doesn't have the temperament to be a preacher.

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He has seven children and in their own way each one has contributed to the grey hairs in his head only Ben is worse. Because he steals John Boy's car and promptly gets into an accident.

John can still remember the ice slipping into his veins when Ben calmly tells them that it was him that took the car into Charlottesville. He meets John's eyes coldly and suddenly it feels like he's staring at another person not his red-headed baby boy that followed him around as a kid.

Ben calmly stares at the wall when he's being integrated sticking to a story that even he thinks sounds like he's lying. He doesn't want to believe that his baby would ever leave a man to die in the streets but he generally doesn't know what to think only that he needs to get answers out of Ben _now…_

Ben refuses. In his life John can count the number of times a child has refused something he has asked them to do on one hand. And none of them have ever been as serious as this. His temper is dangerously close to snapping for the first time in his life he wants to beat something out of his child.

He really thinks looking back, when he grabs Ben's shirt-if it wasn't for his father's hand on his back and his warning word of "John" as if to remind him that smacking Ben would only make him feel worse he dreads to think what he would do-or if he could stop.

And then the story unravels. It's a girl. It's always a girl, it was always Livy for John so he's not really surprised.

Doesn't stop him spending the whole night after the court room drama wondering what would have happened had he given in to his temper and really hit Ben.

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Ben gets into scrapes with his brothers more often or so over women, and then he decides to become a man and leave home. His sisters don't seem to take it seriously, Livy seems furious but Ben just looks at him with those bright blue eyes that are furious and full of fire and alive.

John doesn't have the heart to tell him to stay when he knows he won't win the argument. So he tampers down on the natural instinct to demand and beg that Ben stay and then proceed to lock him in his room. When he grabs Livy's arm it's much to keep her in place as it is to keep himself standing as his son walks away from him and into the great unknown.

And when he comes back John smiles and pretends that the knowledge of Ben in the rain trying to find a job didn't keep him up all night.

Even when the house is on fire and John is confronted with the terrifying realisation that Erin and John Boy _are still in there_ he still double checks to make sure that Ben (who has gone to fetch Ike like he asked) is Ok.

Ben pulls some shit-and he says that as reverently as he can manage in his time but this really has to be the worst. Because Elizabeth starts having nightmares, and then she ends up at the top of a Ferris wheel. And if that wasn't enough to make John go cold when they arrive at the ride they see a clearly shaken John Boy, a hysterical Elizabeth and a calm Ben who admits to having climbed to the top of the wheel knowing what would happen should he fall (or worse his sister) and _carries on doing it anyway._

He tells Ben he's proud of him but his insides are heaving and it takes a lot of self-control not to vomit over Oliva's nightdress when he sees how high that wheel really is.

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And then Ben gets married.

And Ok John has nothing against Cindy he doesn't-just because she has a red car doesn't mean she's fast or loose and once both she and Ben reassure him they didn't have to get married he's really fine with it. He has Jason and John Boy and Jim Bob-he can miss one wedding.

It just irritates him because Ben does exactly what did all those years ago. He wishes his Pa was here so he could say he understands what it must have been like when he and Livy came home all those years ago to announce that they had eloped and were now married.

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America goes to war. John really knew it was coming the second England went in, it's too much like the last time the same feeling of unease but he can see the excitement on each of his boys faces much like he and Ben had all those years ago-that feeling to be over there and doing _something._

John Boy goes back to report the truth in France with the Army Correspondence. Jason goes straight into the Army Infantry like John did all those years ago, even Jim Bob goes into the Air Force fixing up the planes so the pilots can fly them.

Ben enlists in the Navy near as damn it no matter what branch of it. He still wears the white uniform. It looks good on him corresponding beautifully with his red hair and freckled face. When they go to war, the four of them, his boys he keeps an eye on Ben the most and that night he swears he can still see that same flash of red behind his eyelids.

He knows however from experience that the four boys who left that mountain just this morning won't be coming back the same.

The war progress just like it did the last time, Ben's in the Pacific-a place that John has no prior knowledge of, he remembers Paris, he remembers Germany and even Russia to some extent but the Pacific-he has no idea.

The Japanese capture Ben.

The Japanese capture his son.

Cindy pulls it together with a remarkable strength that impresses even him. She doesn't let the cracks show till the very end when Germany surrenders and everyone knows that Japan has to be next. Even when the news of the bomb breaks she doesn't react with shock or horror like the rest of them she just sits their quietly throughout the days until the war is finally over.

She only ever near as damn it collapses when Mary-Ellen presses a telephone into her hand and tells her "Do you wanna speak to your husband or don't you"

"Daddy" she cries spinning around him as Erin screams "Ben's alive, he's coming home"

For the first time since they told him his brother Ben was dead he feels his knees buckle.

Ben is alive, he's coming home-his baby is coming home.

By the grace of God he has managed to do what so many other people haven't-he gets his boys back alive.

And then Ben tells him he's leaving.

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Virginia dies. Little Ginny his first granddaughter, it's a small battle with pneumonia but she dies anyway. Charlie's sick with it too but he pulls through his little body shaking and coughing. It makes him feel sick because he remembers his son's small coffin being pressed into his arms and being forced to bury it privately.

Ben looks and acts normal for a long time afterwards-he isn't normal for a long time afterwards. But he shuts of his emotions and carries on like nothing had ever happened.

Charlie gets better-Ben and Cindy get worse.

They adopt later. A pair of brothers. Freddie and Jeremy, they continue to struggle but the five of them, Ben, Cindy, Freddie, Charlie and Jeremy mould together to become a family.

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The one thing John prides himself on is that he doesn't have favourites when it comes to his children. He would gladly die for each one of them a thousand times over, theirs gentle John-Boy, curious Jason, strong Mary-Ellen, beautiful Erin, tenacious Jim-Bob and baby Elizabeth but if he had to choose the child that he thinks is more like him, the child that he thinks has given him more grief than he thought was possible then he'd choose Ben.

Ben. The little red head that was born in November, that defied him, angered him, tormented him during the war and reminds him of his brother.

Oh yes. Somewhere, somehow, some place where John knows he is going soon-his older brother has spent the better part of three decades laughing at him.

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 **And let me know what you think.**


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